Talk Elections

What would happen if each state used Instant Runoff Voting in past elections? You know, a candidate has to win an absolute majority to get the Electoral Votes in a state. Anybody care to what-if here?

Gore wins 291-247.

I wonder how 1912 would be played out. Anybody?

Well, someone might as well try 1912. It is not easy by any means though, and I probably don't have it exactly right, but here is my stab at it.

(I used a different shading system)
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Roosevelt 224, Wilson 170, Taft 137

Here is my thinking:

In the >90% category, I put states that were already >50% and no manner of shifting votes among the other candidates would change the outcome of the state. This includes most of the south for Wilson and SD for Roosevelt.

In the >80% category, I put states where adding Taft's votes to Roosevelt's votes resulted in Roosevelt winning >50%, though only states where Roosevelt was actually leading. Includes only WA, MN, MI, and PA.

In the >70% category, I put states where adding Taft's votes to Roosevelt's votes resulted in Roosevelt winning >50%, and doing so resulted in Wilson losing the state. In addition, I included states where adding Roosevelt's votes to Taft's resulted in Taft winning >50%. This, however, is an assumption because having all of Roosevelt's votes would have gone to Taft under IRV is pure speculation on my part.

Now comes the hard part, allocating Debs's votes. For this map I assumed that Debs's votes would have split evenly between Roosevelt and Wilson, though a small fraction went to Taft in Roosevelt's absence. Doing so resulted in Roosevelt taking CA and MD very narrowly, and him taking NV, CO, and IN by wider margins. It also had Wilson taking AZ, OK, MO, and KY.

That took care of every state except for WI and OH. For both of the those states, Taft came in second and recieved Roosevelt's votes, but even giving Wilson all of Debs's votes did not see anyone reach >50%. However, in each case, Taft was within 1.5% of >50% while Wilson was further away. I do not know who Chafin's voters would go to, so for the sake of argument, I decided that a small percentage of Debs's voters would go to Taft, as he was closer to >50% than Wilson was in those two states.

Here is the simple state map:
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Of course, the simple fact that they would be using IRV would through off the results entirely, so who knows what would have really happened. But this is my guess.

The 1992 election would have been very interesting. 

Seems to me that Clinton would have won more states than he did in that system. 

What about 1980.  Who would the Anderson voters have gone for?

Carter

Here's what I get for '92 if we allow Bush to win states with a difference of 4 points or less and Clinton to take the rest.

Clinton 309
Bush 229

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Why do you do that?

What would change in the elections featuring Cleveland?

What about the 1840s?  Would Clay win in 1844?  Would Cass in 1848?

And what about 1824? 
I can imagine the following scenario: 
- Clay wins the EV from Illinois and Indiana in the runoffs. 
- He then has more EV than Crawford
- Therefore, when the election goes to the House, he is one of the possible choices.
- He is able to mobilize his support in the house plus convince the Adams-block to back him, winning the presidency.
- JQA stays on as Secretary of State

Simplicity, mostly.  I agree that most of Perot's votes were anti-Bush votes, but I think a certain number of them were basically conservative votes that were not inclined to go for Clinton.  So, I just allowed states that fell within the MoE to break for Bush, and gave the states outside the MoE to Clinton.  Of course, it's entirely possible, given the results in '96, that Ohio (particularly since Glenn won his Senate seat that year), Louisianna, Kentucky and Tennessee would have gone for Clinton anyway in '92, though I don't think Georgia or Montana would have.  In this case the map would look like this:

Clinton 342
Bush 196

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But you forget that in Maine and Utah, Perot came in 2nd. Since IRV works by eliminating the candidates with the least number of votes in each round if no candidate gets an absolute majority, you don't think Maine and/or Utah could swing to Perot in the final round? Plus, New Jersey could've been a close win for Bush because he barely lost it by a point or so.

 I agree that Perot voters were mostly anti-Bush/anti-incumbent but not inclined to go for Clinton when there was another choice.  But faced with the only two options, how do they vote?  I dont see that most of them would have picked Bush.

All reasoable points.  Here is a final map for '92.

Clinton  323
Bush     206
Perot        9

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IIRC based on polling a good deal of them would have stayed home.